


Old Scars Reopened, Bleeding Again

by FieryEclipse



Category: Hannibal (TV)
Genre: After the Fall, Blood, Comfort, Hannigram - Freeform, Hurt, Hurt and comfort, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Memory Palace, Murder Husbands, Post Series, Scars, Will's Imagination, canon typical surreality, it's still beautiful, post wotl, wotl
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-22
Updated: 2020-07-22
Packaged: 2021-03-04 20:54:04
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 943
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25452709
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/FieryEclipse/pseuds/FieryEclipse
Summary: With difficulty, Will wades his way back through a tunnel of thorns and opens his eyes. It's not a memory palace. It's just a beach. It's the ocean, the sky and Hannibal. And it's the most beautiful place he's ever been.___________________________________________________________________Just after the fall, Will and Hannibal chart the bleeding scars that map their relationship, the journeys marked upon each other's skin that have led them to this moment.
Relationships: Will Graham/Hannibal Lecter
Comments: 9
Kudos: 35
Collections: ItsStillBeautiful 2020





	Old Scars Reopened, Bleeding Again

The kitchen looks the same as it always did, looming through the darkness. Moth-eaten curtains musty and drawn, perpetual night struggling to filter through. The smells of dried blood, death and abandonment seep from every crevice, clotting in the air around Will Graham. It's hollow and it's hell, but somehow still feels a little like home. He was born in this very room, although he never lived here.

Heavy with exhaustion, Will watches through half lidded eyes as he guides another's hand to his shoulder. Deft, elegant fingers push aside the collar of his shirt, trace ever so lightly over the old bullet wound residing there. Hannibal draws a subtle intake of breath as he first touches the mottled skin, touches the memory imprinted forever onto Will's person.

_The moment of no return_

The doctor parts his lips as if to talk, but Hobbs' kitchen dissolves around the pair. Sleek steel counter-tops melt through the din, while walls expand like a giant rib cage and the scent of death becomes brighter, more fragrant, as a pool of blood rushes in around their ankles like the tide.

Gently tightening his hold on Hannibal's wrist, Will guides it down his torso. He doesn't say a word, he couldn't even muster one if he tried, but Hannibal knows what's being asked of him all the same. He doesn't complain when Will slips Hannibal's hand beneath his shirt and presses it flat against the ravaged plane of Will's abdomen. Hannibal's eyes slide closed at the contact, a rare surrender of his guard. His palm is hot, sinfully soft, against Will's skin, a pulsing sensation divided by the scar torn numbly through the middle. His breathing quickens, then.

_The moment I watched you leave_

Blood sinks between the cracks of amber tiled flooring. The dying stag on the ground fades away. Then Will and Hannibal stand inside a stolen dining room on a warm Florence evening, the table set for three. Three empty plates, three empty chairs, while crimson pearls float into the ceiling like weightless drops of rain.

This time, Will simply holds on as Hannibal reaches for his face of his own accord. A thumb runs through Will's curls, ghosts across the aching scar on his forehead. The touch comes away bloody, and heat trickles down Will's face in rivulets.

_The moment you lost me_

Hannibal's breath comes ragged, his voice weighted by something Will can vaguely remember. “Will,” he tries, but there's no time to talk.

Will doesn't know if Hannibal can see the walls of the dining room collapse around them, bricks and mortar lost to the eroding bluff and the sea roiling far below. The other man doesn't react to shards of glass that scatter between their faces, to the gust of fresh air or the darkness and moonlight that finds them. But even if he can't see it too, he's still balancing on that cliff beside Will. It's evident in his face, in his eyes, in the lust and reverence and longing and regret all coiled into one. Hannibal watches Will now just like he had in those precious seconds, and finally he allows his fingers to fall, to find the fresh scar marring Will's cheek.

_The moment we became us_

Will leans into the touch like he never has before. He kisses the scar on the inside of Hannibal's wrist, proof of his retaliation marked onto the Devil, himself. The tang of blood and power on his tongue is familiar, is welcome, and Hannibal's eyelids slide shut once more as he attempts to breathe it all in. The memories, the reality, the truth neither of them would have ever believed. Will doesn't remember when he, too, closed his eyes but he did, and he feels the wind and hears the ravenous ocean rush closer below, and when soft lips press against the wound on his cheek he shivers. It's bleeding and it hurts, but he craves the pain.

“Come back, Will. Listen to my voice. Let it guide you home.”

The roar of the waves nearly drown out Hannibal's words, the bluff, the fall. Then there's salt on the air, slick darkness invading Will's senses, the scrape of sand dragging raw against his skin. All of his scars are burning and alive, old wounds reopened, bleeding again. And Will wants it. Each one comforts him like familiar fingerprints, knowing Hannibal will exist beneath the surface, with him forever, until the moment he dies.

“But it seems death doesn't want us, dear Will.” A pained murmur against his cheekbone.

Either Will spoke that last part aloud or they've transcended the need for words altogether, and in his current state he can't decide which option seems the most likely.

“We were spurned from its gates and cast back to our bodies, cursed to live with our choices. Open your eyes, Will. Open your eyes, and _see_.”

With difficulty, Will wades his way back through a tunnel of thorns, and obliges. No musty curtains flutter overhead, no feathered stags lay dying nearby, no weightless pearls of blood drift up the height of cliffs towering far above. It's not a memory palace. It's just a beach. And it's the most beautiful place Will has ever been.

It's the ocean, the sky and Hannibal. Hannibal, bleeding and breathless and soaked to the bone in this reprieve they have formed in the sand. Hannibal, antlered and unashamed of the pride pouring from his eyes like tears. Hannibal, cradling Will here in their secret chrysalis, where no one will ever find them and they're wounded and weak but alive. They're _alive_.

And, finally, Will can see it all.

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks for reading my contribution to It's Still Beautiful 2020! This is only my second Hannibal fic so far, and I really hope you lovely Fannibals enjoyed it as much as I enjoyed writing it ^.^ 
> 
> The artwork included is my own, please check out the rest of my Gallery if you like what you see here. Mostly I draw from the TV series Heroes (Peter Petrelli/Sylar), but Hannigram is creeping in and there will likely be more to come in future: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10701150/chapters/23702379
> 
> Comments and kudos are always welcome!


End file.
